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FSA fines analyst Â£52,000 over leaks

The Financial Services Authority has fined a former Citigroup analyst for leaking research to fund managers ahead of publication.

Roberto Casoni had pay Â£52,500 (â‚¬77,329) - the largest fine for an individual since former GLG hedge fund manager Philippe Jabre was ordered to pay Â£750,000 last year for violating market conduct and non-deliberate market abuse.

The fine was reduced from Â£75,000 because Casoni co-operated with the FSA.

The events took place in January last year when Casoni was in the process of initiating coverage on Banca Italease, an Italian leasing and factoring bank. Having taken a different view on the bank's valuation from his analyst peers, Casoni believed the stock provided investors with more than 50% upside.

On 12 January 2006, he emailed a fund manager who held a large position in the stock, asking him to consider his model for valuation of the bank. An email discussion followed, before the pair finally met on 20 January. Although Casoni's research had been approved by Citigroup's internal stock steering committee that morning, it was not to be published to the wider market for three more days.

Casoni also contacted two more fund managers on 13 January to discuss details of his research, and emailed a spreadsheet containing his calculations to a fourth client three days later. His note was not published to the wider market until 23 January after the market had closed. The shares moved up more than 1% the following day.